ARKHAM WORLD: SCARECROW'S MADNESS
by SurferDylan64
Summary: SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! After Joker's death, Batman feels nothing but guilt. But after being napped by the Scarecrow and brought to the abandoned Arkham Asylum, who could tell what will happen. This is my take on the sequel of Arkham City, the ending of the trilogy of Arkham Games. Enjoy!
1. A Flooded Graveyard

**This fanfiction is supposed to take place two weeks after the end of the video game Batman: Arkham City. The title is based upon a spoiler of when Joker won an award for best video game character, he held a script that read: Arkham World. Enjoy my story! NOTE: There are spoilers, so if you haven't played the game "Arkham City" or watched the walkthrough, I highly reccomend you do so before reading Arkham World.**

**This is Vicki Vale reporting live from Channel Seven News. Batman was last seen carrying the Joker, found dead, out of a local theater. But the question is what happened inside of the theater? And where is Batman as we speak?**

The makeshift boat swayed back and forth. Storm clouds were brewing in the deep, dark indigo skies. All he had was a paddle and a hard, stone-like boat.

A flooded country-side_. It must have been flooded by a river_, he thought. Thunder boomed in the distance, and then was followed by rain. He wasn't a fan of rain. It seemed to flow right off of his water-resistant, armored suit. It was equipped with many gadgets that were waterproof, but the rain was a mere distraction to the task at hand.

He paddled ever so slowly, only to pass by fallen trees and houses nearly under water. What had happened? This flooded countryside seemed very familiar for some odd reason. He blinks. While blinking, for a split second, he sees a place which has scarred him for life. The asylum. Arkham Asylum. Batman paddled and paddled until crashing into a scarecrow, taller than him.

The thing was a mangled mess with greenish moss for hair and red marker drawings for a mouth. As he got closer and closer to the scarecrow, it morphed into a hideous sight. A sight that brought guilt to him every night, ever since the _incident_. It was _him_. Batman hadn't thought that it would do anything but bring him guilt, but as Batman passed it, the scarecrow came to life to have a chat with the man who had brought misery to Harley. The man who fought for vengeance and vengeance alone. The man who had accidentally killed the Joker. _No, _Batman thought. _He killed himself. It was his own stupid move. _

"Your fate lies ahead, Bruce." says the Joker, tied to the wooden poles. How did he know his name? Batman, confused, paddled ahead, only to find something worse. It was his name. Bruce Wayne wasn't a frightening name, but where it was positioned gave Batman the chills. His tombstone.

A creepily distorted voice swirled around Batman in a whirlwind of fear and uncertainty of where he was, what he was doing and who was talking. "Welcome to hell, Batman." It was Crane. Jonathan Crane. The Scarecrow.

"What have you done to me, Crane? Where are we?" Batman was utterly confused and angry at Crane for bringing him here. How _had_ he gotten here?

"I've already said hell, but here is much worse." The countryside spun around him. The background became blurry and soon enough morphed into a room. He lay on a padded floor and stared up at the ceiling. A light flickered on. He made himself familiar with the setting, which made itself familiar with Bruce. It was the Asylum. Words spun around Batman's head. He had remembered this place like it was yesterday.

Apparently, Scarecrow had drugged Batman with fear gas, made specially by Jonathan Crane, himself. It had created a whole new setting of a flooded countryside and a graveyard. But why was Joker there? So many questions.

He stood up, unaware of his surroundings or what room in the asylum he was in. He stood up, only to find himself in a solitary confinement room of Arkham Asylum. The room was small and covered in padding. A small opening was in the roof of this room, probably big enough for a bug to fit into. Next to the opening was a speaker and a camera to document all of Batman's actions. While looking up at the little opening, he noticed a small roach crawling out of it.

Ever since Arkham City had been opened by Strange, the Asylum was left dark and decaying. He had a good idea of just how many bugs were in the vicinity. As Batman thought of the abandoned Asylum, he heard a loud voice blare over the speakers. It was Crane. "Ladies and Gents, let's hear it for our one and only member here." Was Crane talking about Batman?

He could hear clapping and applause from the room beyond the confinement. What horrors could await in there? So many questions made Bruce feel dizzy. Who is in on this? What did Joker have to do with his hallucination? How had Crane knew about Joker's death? It had only been two weeks since the incident, which apparently was long enough to kidnap Bruce and prepare the Asylum. _Selina_, he thought. _Scarecrow probably made a deal with her. _

Bruce and Selina had a rocky relationship. One night she'd steal jewelry and another she'd save his butt, which was pushed against a padded wall, at this moment. "You see, Batman. I've been plotting this for _quite _some time!" his voice seemed calming, but was what controlled his patients madness. "And ever since Joker's death, I just haven't had time to do much more."

"Then why the _hell _did you bring me here, Jonathan?"

"_It's a long story."_ At that line, Batman was pulled into another hallucination. This vision took place in a theater. It was long abandoned with goons surrounding it. The sign out front read:_ JOKER: THE IMMORTAL._ Inside something huge was going down, and Batman was viewing it from third person.


	2. A Twisted Thought Process

He stood on a balcony high above the theater where everything was happening. Batman saw himself on the theater floor battling with Clayface. After a trip and fall, the third-person Batman stood up to see Joker standing atop a power source. "Outta my way Bat's!" he snarled. "I've got a date with _immortality_!" Batman stared down at himself throwing Talia's sword at the source with amazing accuracy, causing it to force Clayface into the Lazarus Pit, thus leading to a horrible explosion.

Being so far up, kept Batman alert and conscious, unlike it did when this had happened to him first-person. While he was out, Joker jumped down from his perch and onto the tile floor. A black figure emerged from the shadows to talk with Joker. "He's pretty smart." laughed Joker, sarcastically. "He fell right into our trap."

"Excellent." replied the voice. Batman couldn't quite make it out from the balcony, but it sounded familiar. "I shall bring you to-well, if I'm able, we can-"

"Clayface can model as me." said Joker cutting him off. "Sure, It'll take him a while to piece back together, but he could probably make it back before Bat's does."

"I like your way of thinking." replies the voice.

Batman, who starts to come back to the real world, has a whole new thought process going on in his head. What were the two talking about? Who was teamed up with the Joker? And where in the _world did the two plan on going?_

_Bruce awoke at the foot of his parents grave. He was weeping up a storm and had no clue why. It had been years since they have perished and Bruce was over it. "It was my fault." he says. He begins to cry more and more until he literally cries a river. His parents' gravestones become a makeshift raft as they are torn from the ground. Bruce tears a stick off of a tree and uses it as a paddle._

_Bruce paddled by a couple off fallen trees and crashed into a familiar scarecrow that resembled the Joker, like he had a couple minutes before. And he said the same exact thing. _

_After crashing into his own grave, Bruce paddled on, only to see a figure drifting away in the river and obviously drowning. "BRUUUUCE!" called the familiar voice. It was a friend who had helped Batman in person and nowadays through a microphone. Oracle._

"_BARBARA!" he called back. With his makeshift raft, Batman paddled as quick and careful as he could to catch up to Oracle. Ever since Joker had shot her in the spine, Oracle was paralyzed from the waist down, therefore she couldn't swim with her legs. _

_Oracle had a deformed doggy paddle going on and was headed for some rough rocks ahead. Batman paddled on and on and finally made it to the rocks where Oracle was stuck in._

_One of Oracle's legs was stuck in between two sharp, jagged rocks. After picking them up and throwing them, Batman was greeted with a punch to the face and a kick to the crotch. "Your luck just ran out!" yelled a gruffly voice. It sounded as if this man had a ball of spider webs in this throat, and it appeared that he had half of a normal face and half cartilage, vein-like, and bloody face. Two-Face had found his way into Batman's hallucination. "Tails you live. Heads, you lose your's."_

_Harvey Dent flipped the coin and slapped it on his wrist. "Today isn't your lucky day, Batman!" Harvey pulled out a revolver with a single bullet in it. "I'll cut you a break." Harvey spun the revolver and pulled the trigger. _

_Batman awoke to a smashed bottle that had broken right next to him. He stood up avoiding the broken glass. He was alert times ten. Now that he had known Scarecrow was going to drug him again, he had to think of a way to block out the gas. The first thing Batman did was break the camera._

_With his fist, Batman punched the camera to lead to more shards of glass on the floor, but at least Scarecrow couldn't see him. "Well, smart one." Announced Scarecrow. "Too bad I can still access the gas." _

_As Scarecrow said this, Batman bent down to the floor and picked up the cork from the smashed bottle and shoved it into the small hole which pumped the gas. After hearing a bunch of coughing, Batman knew his plan had worked. The source of the gas must have blew up in the faces of the people behind the fear gas. "I've got to find a way out of here before Crane comes-to." says Batman. But how could he escape?_


	3. An A-door-ed Riddle

Solitary confinement was supposed to be a fear beyond all fears in jail. Especially, in the asylum. Batman pondered this thought. _Well, Scarecrow's supposed to be the scariest villain, _thought Batman. Obviously, Scarecrow wasn't. To Batman, it was most likely Joker.

Batman stared up at the ceiling expecting something to happen. "There's gotta be something beyond that wall." he says with satisfaction. Batman reaches to the ceiling where the smashed camera lay. With a firm grip and concentration, he pulled it down revealing a narrow passageway. But how could he fit? The passageway was the size of his arm. Well, at least the entrance was. _The entrance… _thought Batman.

The thing closest to the camera was the very large speaker. With a few punches Batman had the speaker on the floor of the cell and used it as a step to climb into the secret passageway.

The passageway itself looked like a normal hallway of the Asylum, but this one was wrecked. A broken lantern lay sparking on the floor, and the wallpaper peeled down from the wall like a spider repelling from above. Batman walked towards the end of the dimly lit hallway.

Approaching the end, Batman noticed three doors side by side. On the wall next to them was a note written in a familiar handwriting. Batman had seen something written by Edward. Edward "E" Nigma was his full name. Riddler. Batman instantly knew it had something to do with which door to enter.

_Batman,_

_What lies before you determines whether you shall pass,_

_Two of three of these doors contain Crane's Fear Gas._

_If you concentrate, you shall not fall behind._

_This challenge is not difficult; _

_Read between the lines._

_Riddler._

Batman instantly switched into detective mode. With his blue and orange vision, he could see fingerprints on the doors to the right and leftmost side of the three. But he couldn't quite see inside. Honestly, if there were goons in any of the doors, it would be the one with the prints.

Batman tapped on the doors on the left and rightmost doors. Solid steel. _That's the only thing detective mode can't see through, _thought Bruce. Ever since the explosion the night Joker died, Batman had noticed one flaw in the detective mode. No solid steel.

_Read between the lines. _Batman noticed that the only door without prints was the middle one.

Riddler used a cleverly disguised metaphor. Between the lines. Between the doors. It was the middle door. Batman opened it slowly, revealing an empty closet with another note. Batman pulled it off of the wall.

_Can you take the plunge?_

_The floor dropped out leading Batman to fall into unfamiliar territory. And goons were surrounding him. Riddler goons. _


End file.
